Saturday, 20 June 2015

The Power of the Written Word


Today, on my own at Ty Jarman, since early this morning I have been struggling with a very familiar enemy - nervous tension.  I am with difficulty putting together a new book. It was the writing process which set it off, this crawling sensation in my stomach which comes so suddenly and lasts so long. I was trying to express the frustration that one of my characters feels at memories which he is not sure are real, and that triggered feelings of frustration with my current situation - spending too much on things which I could have done without;  lack of a clear direction for my efforts, purpose, work, and so on.  
There have been periods during the day when it receded, and I've worked hard and achieved a fair bit, but now, half a bottle of red wine down, a frugal meal of cauliflower cheese and a few new potatoes dug from those I planted in the cold frame; strong coffee and dark chocolate with hazel nuts; now, still tense but emotional, I am reduced to tears by marks on paper. It's Gavin Maxwell, the "Ring of Bright Water Trilogy". I've just finished this recent compilation 40 years after I read the original books and only a few weeks after a recent visit to Sandaig, opposite the Isle of Skye and the place he called Camusfearna. He, more than any other writer I know, understands the transcending power of deep contact with the natural world. Unlike most modern humans he sees no conflict between his love of the animals who have given him their absolute trust, and his instincts as a hunter. In the true chase there is a bond between predator and prey. They have evolved together and we, as the top predators can, if we are lucky, experience both joy at the escape of the prey and triumph at a successful kill.
There is one particularly memorable passage towards the end of "Raven Seek Thy Brother" when, beset by a host of terrible problems, mostly of his own creation, he escapes to a day of deer stalking:
"The days that I spent on the hill, in worse weather conditions than it is easy to visualize, gave to me a feeling of complete and utter release; of a unity with nature that I had long lacked at Camusfearna."
He hears suddenly thought the mist and rain the call of a stag in rut - "wild and elemental…it begins low and throaty like a bull's roar, then hollows out to a higher, dying cadence that seems to hold at the same time challenge, despair and frustration. I stirred to that desolate music as I stirred to the whip of wind and rain….with the cold so bitter I was conscious of my own shivering, I felt an actual buoyancy, an uplift of spirit. This was my world, the cradle of my species, shared with the wild creatures." 
This is like my best moments bird watching, but it is hard in our world of mass prosperity to escape in this way. In our pursuit of material comforts we have tamed the wilderness. To feed our ever-growing numbers we manipulate nature and create deserts of mono-culture where only a few hardy species can survive. Then we find we long for the teeming natural world we are so busy destroying and we use great chunks of the wealth this destruction has brought us to re-create a semblance of what we have lost. In these Nature Reserves no expense is spared to re-model the land to entice back those creatures we have banished. To enable us "hunt" for them we control our access to them and watch them from hides which do not frighten them. In the best of these reserves, nature is laid out before us and we can get a distant taste of that elemental wilderness. We can hunt them with our clusters of binoculars, telescopes and cameras which our destruction of nature has made affordable. With the power of cheap Chinese optics we can capture that sense of proximity which Maxwell so eloquently describes.  
I think he would have enjoyed the irony. It was his very personal accounts of his life at the outer edges of civilization and his moving rapport with the otters who shared it with him that made him prosperous, and it was that prosperity which he used to add more and more complications of buildings, power lines, boats, trucks, cars and communications in a race to keep ahead of the many conflicting needs of his animals and his staff. All this to the extent that he destroyed the elemental simplicity of the place. 
What pleased me so much on my brief pilgrimage to Sandaig was to see that nature had returned. A few telegraph poles lay slowly rotting on the ground. The house and all its ugly extensions had long gone - and nature has come back: a shingle beach with ringed plovers nesting, a rough grass foreshore with at its centre a stone marking the place where the house had been and where Maxwell's ashes lie. There is an old boarded up cottage, a waterfall in the trees, and out towards the water a little string of islands placed there just to look right.  I was alone there except for the birds who knew no other world and who were living their lives as they always had.   
I'm also reading George Orwell's "Down and out in Paris and London". Like Maxwell, Orwell (Eric Blair) had been educated in the tradition of the British upper classes, but found himself drawn to the outer edges.  Maxwell was a true aristocrat but Blair's family had declined to the status of aspiring bourgeoisie. Both felt alienation from their backgrounds; Maxwell as a closet homosexual obsessed with animals and nature, Orwell as a true radical, scornful of traditional politics. I don't suppose they ever met, and doubt whether they would have felt much in common, but from this distance I can see several parallels. Here is Orwell:  
"It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs - and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it. It takes off a lot of anxiety."  
They both write about their own lives; Maxwell in an intensely personal way, Orwell with always a slightly humorous detachment: two great thinkers looking unflinchingly at the world around them and using their knowledge of language to make those worlds intensely real to me here, reading their books 50 years later. 
They were both (and so am I) searching for the "special" those times and places when we are lifted out of our ordinary lives and feel an intense contact with reality. Music can do this. I used to sit, or more usually stand, through an hour of music which I enjoyed at an ordinary level just for a few minutes when it took off and I felt a great leap of joy. A whole 3 day festival could be justified by a handful of such moments. If I could bring back Orwell and Maxwell to keep me company in front of the main stage I think Maxwell would hate it, but Orwell would record his impressions of it with interest.

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Welcome to the next 100 years!

Not planning on being around that long?

Too bad, but this is not about us it's about our descendants, our children, grandchildren and in  my case great grandchildren; but it's not just about them either, it's all of us, the human race, the species Homo Sapiens.

Millions of us have wondered what we can do to stop our species destroying itself. Why are we so hell-bent on fouling our nest, eating our future, poisoning the air we breathe and the water we drink?

How I found out the answer to these questions and what I ended up doing about it is the subject of these writings.

Two Americas - or more?

"The last job of capitalism – having won all the battles against labour, having acquired the ultimate authority, almost the ultimate moral authority over what's a good idea or what's not, or what's valued and what's not – the last journey for capital in my country has been to buy the electoral process, the one venue for reform that remained to Americans."

This is from David Simon, creator of The Wire, and is part of an impromptu speech he delivered in Sidney.

His thesis is that there are 2 Americas, and one of them is not connected to the American way of life. In "The Phoenix Nation" I depict the US as divided geographically as well as socially. In my version of the future, the part of America we call "The Bible Belt" splits from "The Atlantic States of America" and become "Christ's Kingdom of America". A third nation is Spanish speaking.

If America were to break up into smaller nations it seems probable that California would separate too. A geographical split would not of itself deal with the two nations in Simon's piece, but the whole process would be revolutionary and it seems unlikely that there would be a place for the dominance of wealth and capital in smaller, less powerful nations.

Friday, 24 April 2015

LAUNCH PARTY


Plans for the LAUNCH PARTY on 9 May are progressing.  Andy and Karen, who used to work in S4C and BBC Wales are cooking up a press release. They say it's no good me doing it because I would be too modest! Moi? The plan is to hit the media (mainly Welsh) a few days before hand and offer them a filmed and edited version all ready to be broadcast. Of course it may not come off, but would be great if it does. 
 
If you scroll down you will come to a post with a cartoon heading it. Anthony, the artist, has offered to do a personalised cartoon as a prize for the competition. The prize will also include a signed copy of the print book, and the competition (deadline end of May) will be for:

  • EITHER the most interesting review of any or all of the books. The judges (yet to be appointed) will be looking for good ideas and a well thought out critique.
  • OR the most interesting comment on this blog or on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/authordickturner  There is also a Facebook event where you can indicate if you are likely to be coming.

Karen (see above) has undertaken to interview me, and she can be relied on to include some searching questions so I'm a little nervous about it.  

If the weather is fine we will  be out in the garden with a glass of bubbly and some tasty treats, but even if it is not, there is a conservatory and a fair amount of room indoors. I'll have a modest pile of books to autograph, but there won't be any pressure to buy - an interesting discussion is my first priority.

Saturday, 18 April 2015

The Floating Voter


I'm still a floating voter - a novel experience for me. Some 16 years ago I read the Plaid Cymru manifesto and have voted for them in all elections since. I find little to criticise in this year's manifesto, which includes some pleasant surprises: the emphasis on 'the nations of the British Isles working together regardless of their constitutions' being one, and the acceptance of all who have made their home here (which includes me) being another.  Altogether, a quick skim through the manifesto leaves me feeling more positive about Plaid.
Job done then?
Not quite. There is one issue which seems to me to be the most important of all: 'climate change'.  I deplore the use of this term as if it were in the same category as say 'immigration' or 'unemployment': -
"Oh yes, and we mustn't forget to do our bit for Climate Change, that goes down well with the tree huggers." It's not one of a list of issues,  It is the ONLY issue if we want our species to survive.
I certainly want at least some of our species to survive, and there is only one party which puts "healing the planet" right at the top of their agenda: The Green Party. So, logically I should vote Green, but it's quite clear now that this election will not be won by anyone offering long-term solutions to our problems.
Perhaps I should be voting for the party which has the best chance of making some of the changes needed to change tack on the climate. If I take this view then in this constituency (Carmarthenshire East and Dinefwr) I should vote for our MP Jonathan Edwards of Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales). Plaid, in potential alliance with SNP and the Green Party could make a real difference.
Against that is the Green slogan: "If you think Green vote Green". The Green party manifesto commitments are UK wide, but I really don't like the way the party is perceived by the media as "to the left of Milliband". This is not what new politics should be about. I would be much happier if the Green party were saying something along the lines of:
"We reject the stale old politics of Left and Right. The present system is leading us to disaster. If we wish to save our species from probable extinction this is what we have to do:
·       Stop burning fossil fuels,
·       Reduce our population by more than half
·       Allocate our resources equally." 
The trouble with this scenario is not that it is fantasy - I suspect there are a large minority who think this is probably what we should be doing. The problem is it doesn't fit human nature. It doesn't square with what we feel our species is all about: some form of 'progress'. We are utterly committed to the idea that our history is about things getting better. This is what all our political parties aim to deliver. Try this one at the hustings and see how far you get:
"Vote for us and we will try to make the best of a bad job!”
 

Saturday, 11 April 2015

Launch Party

For the last 4 years or more I have been focussed on the daunting task of actually finishing a book. There had been several false starts spread out over my working life, and I'm proud to have finally created something with not just a beginning, but a middle and an end.

However, like trudging up a mountain, you get to the top and then find another peak ahead. What seemed like the summit  turns out to be the beginning of the next huge task: Editing. Every time you go through the work you find things that could be done better, until slowly the mist ahead clears and you can see the peak:  Publication. At last all is agreed, the book appears in print and on  the web. Whew! Job Done!

Oh no. Of course not; nobody wants to be the author of a book which hardly sells any copies. There is yet another uphill struggle: Marketing, and that is where I am now. Within the framework provided by Cambria Books the actual nitty-gritty of selling books is down to me, and the competition is massive. How do I get people's attention in this age of information surfeit?

I got a bit depressed about this and wondered if I would have to fork out money I can't afford to pay a publicist. NO! Come on you, One last effort! I spent some time trying out different ideas, got some good advice and have now planned a marketing campaign which will begin with a LAUNCH PARTY.

Anyone reading this is invited, and I hope you will come and sample the drinks and snacks, listen to me reading extracts, take advantage of a special launch offer, but above all engage in some discussion. One of the main purposes of the books after all is to stimulate debate. Here's the details:

Launch Party for THE VANDERVELDE DOCUMENTS
Ty Jarman, Cilycwm, Llandovery SA20 0SS
3:30 pm to 6pm


Friday, 3 April 2015

THE OLD TESTAMENT


For most of my life I have ignored one of the great pillars of literature in any language; one of only two books assumed to be essential reading by those marooned on the fictional Desert Island of BBC Radio.  That is not the only thing The Bible shares with the works of Shakespeare. In its best known form -" The Authorised Version" or "The King James Bible" -  it is a celebration of the language of Shakespeare, the form of English which, in the seventeenth century, still had evocative echoes of its roots in Anglo-Saxon.  

Now, at 70 years of age, I have set myself the goal of reading that same version from cover to cover, or rather from digital page 1 to "mark this book as closed". (I haven't risked losing my place in the bible e-book to see if this phrase is there. It would be a rich irony if it were!)  It's hard work I can tell you. I had got as far as the wanderings of the Hebrew tribes in exile when I decided I would need some help. First I looked to the web, and was immediately swamped in all manner of commentaries, almost all from America and many of them  reflecting their peculiarly frantic brand of fundamental Christianity. Some were very helpful, but in the end I decided I would need a book - a real printed one which I could have to hand beside my screen.  I was fortunate to discover "A Beginner's Guide to the Old Testament" by Robert Davidson, an academic and one time Moderator in the Church of Scotland.  Davidson succinctly explains the background and significance of all these strange and ancient writings. This morning I found this in his account of  Psalm 8.
 
"The Bible is only too grimly aware - as we are or ought to be today - that when we grasp at independence, when we decide to go it alone, accepting no restraints except our own desires and needs, we are on the way to disaster. All that we have and are has been given to us to be used responsibly within the context of the adoration of God the giver." 

Now one of the central tenets of environmental politics (the Green Movement) is the repudiation of the Christian and Judaic belief that human beings are set above the animals - "You make him master over all you have made." We now know that has no basis in fact. Our beginnings were as accidental as any other life form. Religion has many things to teach us but the origins of life are not amongst them. This is not a question of "belief" but empirical knowledge. Evolution is simply the best hypothesis to explain what we see around us. The idea of an omnipotent God doesn't square with what we know, and the more we learn about genetics the less distinct from other animals we become. 

At the times when the books of the Bible were written people had no way of acquiring that knowledge, but they were the same species with the same needs and desires as us, and  I am confident that with Davidson's help I shall find inspiration from all these stories and poems. Returning to the quotation above, I  can see a parallel with the idea that humans face disaster when they turn away from God, to our present belief that we face disaster when we ignore the lessons of evolution - "accepting no restraints except our own desires and needs."  Time and again in the Old Testament the tribes of Israel are dealt with in what to us is a shockingly violent fashion whenever they start to think they are above the Lord their God (The Hebrew word Jahweh).  

If I substitute the word Evolution for the word Jahweh I open up the possibility of a better understanding of religion, or even of  life in general. I have a gut feeling that Jahweh would see our current profligate use of fossil fuels and the obscene wealth of the top 1% as eminently worthy of a plague of boils or even a flood….now look where that's taking us!